Live Search steps backwards

This week has had a lot of news about search engines. Cuil led the way with a slightly bumpy launch. And now Live Search has updated their search page with a pretty picture and graffiti-like hotsearches. Eh, doesn’t win me over at all. Search is the key not doodads.

I also did several quick searches of Live and at least to me the search quality has taken a step backwards. Yuk. Just try “Tablet PC” and if you know anything about this space you’ll know it’s so-so results. After all this time I would have thought the results would be getting better. These aren’t. Here’s the thing: the results are looking very product or commerce biased. I thought I’d never say it but Microsoft needs to acquire Mahalo and work on their search results for the first couple pages until they work out a better algorithm. They need as much focus on authority as commerce. Maybe it’s what I’m searching for. Web 2.0 doesn’t look so hot either. Oh well, I guess that’s why we need more search engines.

Hopefully these things are just little experiments that will fade away fast. This is complete idle spectulation, but it looks to me like the engineers are losing the battle here. Live Search is turning into mush right before our eyes.

OK, OK, in trying to get back to a positive, constructive tone, here’s my suggestion on how Microsoft can salvage this. Here’s the thing: Make the Live picture relative to the user’s domains of interest. For instance, if I’m into Tablet PCs, leverage photos about news or events going on right now that might be of interest. Maybe a chat with Dave Winer and some of what he’s learned about pulling photos down might be in order. Or maybe just show pictures on special occassions. Don’t try to gimmick Live Search to an extreme. Do I really think this all of this is really necessary? No. But at least it might make the pictures more relevant and maybe something I might click on. After all, isn’t that the game here–to try to get people to click once or twice more?